It seems like only yesterday when scientists announced the discovery of yet another “super-Earth.” Last year, a half-lava, half-rock world, dubbed 55 Cancri e , was found around 40 light-years from Earth and was determined to be twice the size of our home planet. And now it has happened again . Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have announced the discovery of a new super-Earth, designated LHS 1140b, orbiting the habitable zone of a small red dwarf star, LHS 1140, about 39 light-years away. (It’s 4.2 light-years from our sun to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri.). “This is the most exciting exoplanet I’ve seen in the past decade,” Jason Dittmann, a ... Full story